Better to have plant and lost than never to have plant(ed) at all

Setback #1 by way of demonstrating that things don’t always work out as planned. 

  

Here are the tomato seeds and the cucumbers that were planted together at exactly the same time. 

The tomatoes have all germinated and are thriving; cucumbers meanwhile are a total ‘no-show’.  Wozzup little guys???

Watch these widgey tomato seedlings though because in a few months these will be fruiting enough to contribute cherry tomatoes to our salads every night for months during the latter part of the summer.





Both sets of these seeds were seeds taken from my own plants (2013) which I dried in the hope that they’d be viable.  Seems like the toms survived while the cucumbers shrivelled away.  What's with that??
   

The cucumbers were from a packet of ‘lemon cucumber’ seeds sent by my Californian friend. 

When I mentioned courgettes she didn’t know what they were as Americans of course call them zucchini. 

She refers to her courgette/cucumber crop as “cukes & zukes” which somehow sounds way cooler than courgettes and cucumbers. 

I have since re-planted the lemon cucumbers, using, not my own dried seeds this time, but seeds taken from the original packet, which OK are out of date, but you can but try. 

Together with, a few cucamelons which I discovered this year and bought from e-bay.  Not really much point in mentioning them as all of which, so far it seems, have not the least intention of co-operating. 



NOTE:  Post update 2 weeks on and all have now produced seedlings

 

We'll readily admit that we're not the most experienced when it comes to veggies but there's no harm in having a dabble because it's always good to learn and you never know, you could end up with a nice bit of grub.  So for the purposes of our USG-Plot project we've decided to include what we can to extend the range of planting and demonstrate what's achievable from your garden, even when starting from scratch.

We're always in two minds as to whether you’ll get a better outcome by starting from seed or to wait until the garden centres and supermarkets have their small hardy plants available, which are always incredibly difficult to resist even if we've already started off some of our own.  A distinct benefit of growing from seed is that you’re not limited to quantity, you can raise as many as you’d like. 

 

The next point to consider is when is too early or too late to start planting.  Of course you want to give them a head start if you’re using your own seeds but there's a danger of a deceiving blast of early spring sunshine encouraging you to believe the time is right to move your seedlings out, (which are rapidly becoming too leggy and spindly), to their final planting destination, only to be rewarded with gales or torrential rains through May which then effectively destroy your plants rendering all your efforts useless.

Let's hope that that doesn't happen and maybe jump the greenhouse to the top of the 2015 wishlist.